


Therapy is for Quitters

by Whisper132



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 19:22:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whisper132/pseuds/Whisper132
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanada and Akutsu learn you can't completely escape your past. Sometimes, you have to settle for simply getting along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Therapy is for Quitters

Sanada Genichirou was silent as his father's car pulled into the parking lot of his new school. While his friends spent their time relaxing and waiting to graduate from the junior high wing to the high school wing of Rikkaidai Fuzoku, Sanada occupied himself taking practice tests and researching high schools that were both far enough away to warrant boarding and close enough to appease his parents. 

"We're not paying for you to fool around," his father reminded him for the fourteenth time. "We expect good reports on your grades and your behavior."

"Yes, sir." Genichirou looked around at the various boys lugging suitcases. He was pleased to note that he didn't recognize any of the faces turned towards him. His future was truly at hand. He could leave the pressure of The Emperor and the overwhelming stress of carrying a team to someone else. Here, in this secluded boys' school, he could study calligraphy and further his reputation in kendo, a sport where he couldn't be weighed down by the performance of others. 

Sanada Genichirou had found himself a new start, and he meant to make the most of it.

*****

Akutsu Jin could not fuck this up. If he got thrown out of this place, his mom would cry. She was already shelling out more money than she should be on a waitress' salary, but she said she wanted her baby boy to have all the opportunities she could give him. She also said that if she got more than three calls complaining about his discipline during the first term, she was going to come up there on her next day off and rip his nuts off. Jin knew his mom well enough to believe the threat.

He really needed a smoke. The gum his mom bought him wasn't doing the trick, and the shitbox the school called a dorm room was triggering his claustrophobia. He prayed his roommate was some nice, quiet kid who would do his homework for him and run into town for contraband snacks on command. Failing that, at least someone who would take the rap for his smoking when the nicotine gum ran out or Jin got tired of looking like a bubble-popping pansy.

Shoving another piece of gum into his mouth, Akutsu started to unpack his few belongings. His uniform was wrinkled, but he'd get someone to iron it before the entrance ceremony on Monday. If he couldn't find a lackey in the next 48 hours, he might as well cut his own balls off and ship them home. He stopped a moment, wincing at the thought, then took his karate belt from the bag. He handled his one treasure gently and stowed it in the small wooden dresser beside his bed. 

The only reason he'd been able to get into this school, beyond the propensity for private schools to let in anyone who could pay, was his karate prowess. While he'd gotten back into tennis for a while, he'd also resumed his karate activities, mostly because Kawamura guilted him into it, but also because smacking someone down in an official setting gave him a sense of accomplishment. Jin was to join the school's karate club as part of the conditions of his enrollment. He was looking forward to it and just hoped the club wasn't run by a bunch of pansies who couldn't stand the sight of blood. 

*****

The dorm room was empty when Sanada and his father arrived, guided by a third year escort. "Your roommate must be out," the older boy, Muratake, said while handing Sanada the room key. "The bath and toilet are at the end of the hall. Lunch will be served in the dining hall at noon, sharp. If you have any questions, just ask someone wearing a green armband. Your orientation pamphlet should cover the basics, and you'll find out more at Monday's school orientation assembly. Until then, get to know the campus and meet some of your classmates." Muratake bowed and left the room, likely to begin the small campus tour cycle with another student. Sanada was glad to see him go; Muratake tried too hard to be funny, and neither Genichirou nor his father were the joking sort.

"I expected a bit more for what we're paying in boarding fees," his father said, looking around the room with a grimace. 

"I just need a bed and a desk. This is fine." It was more than fine; it was heaven. Even if the owner of the ratty suitcase sitting on the bed on the other side of the room was a complete idiot, this room was far away from any of the worries that had twisted his gut into daily knots during middle school. Here he could smile when it suited him or make a joke without having classmates question his sanity.

"If you need anything, call us and we'll send it." Genichirou's father wasn't an overly sentimental man, but his features softened as he placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "We'll miss you."

"I'll come home at least once a month. I promised mom, and it's only two hours by train." Giving into impulse, Genichirou surged forward and folded his father in a quick embrace. "I'll miss you, too."

The moment dissipated just as quickly as it had formed, and the two separated. Genichirou retrieved his suitcase and put it atop his own bed, and his father gave the room a final inspection before declaring it was time for him to head back home. Genichirou offered to walk him to the car, but his offer was refused. "I can find it myself," his father said, his voice slightly pitchier than Genichirou was used to hearing it. With a final clap to his son's shoulder, the older man exited the room, his solid footsteps in the hall rumbling the floor. Genichirou blinked until the stinging in his eyes faded.

*****

Jin was surprised to find the door to the room unlocked when he returned from his shower. Half naked wasn't how he wanted to meet his new roommate, and he debated heading back for a soak in the simulated hot spring bath the school provided but decided that he wasn't going to wuss out on asserting his dominance just because doing so in the Hawaiian print towel his mother had sent with him made the task a little more difficult. Akutsu Jin could wear a tutu and still kick the ass of anyone who dared oppose him. Doubters could ask his first grade classmate Kawano Hidenobu all about it.

"Now listen here," Jin began as he pushed into the room. "I don’t—" His train of thought met a bloody end as soon as he got a clear look at his roommate. It would be his fucking luck that something like this would happen. Sanada didn't seem to be much happier.

"We don't need to talk to one another," Sanada said, resuming his ironing.

Jin bristled. "So Mr. Rikkaidai is too good to talk to scum like me, huh?" He put his hands on his hips and, when he encountered the towel, remembered that he was starting a fight nearly naked. 

Sanada set the iron aside and looked up. "I just want to be left alone by you and by everyone else from that time. Understood?" Sanada's mouth twitched. "Nice towel."

"You want me to leave you alone? Maybe you should keep your fucking mouth shut." There was a heat in his balls as his fist began to clench. "Or maybe you'd like to come over here and say that again." Just a little fight to take the edge off his nerves would do the trick. After a few punches he could go for a walk and cool his head before he had to deal with the noise of the dining hall and the idiots running around it.

"I'm busy." Sanada took up his iron again. "Bring your uniforms. I assume they're wrinkled."

Well, shit. If he did as he was told, he'd have the cleanly pressed uniforms he needed. He would also set a precedent for Sanada bossing him around like some first year ball boy. The still-present tingling in his genitals reminded him that showing up to class with a uniform in non-regulation condition was considered a disciplinary infraction. Three of those and he was toast. Still…

"You training to be a housewife?" Jin asked even as he tossed his uniforms onto Sanada's bed.

Sanada ignored him and finished pressing a tie. 

Jin let the conversation drop while he got dressed. It was more than a little difficult to stuff himself into his white skinny jeans when he was half hard, but he managed. "Hang my shit in the closet when you're done. I'm outta here."

No response came before Jin stormed out and toward the workout room in the gym. If he didn't hit something soon, he'd get himself kicked out before the school year even started.

*****

What the school lacked in living accommodations it more than made up for in dining experience. The dining hall was clean and orderly. What was more, it was outfitted with actual tables and chairs arranged according to dormitory blocks. The downside was that Sanada was forced to sit next to his roommate.

"Now we'll explain the dining procedure," a third year boy said. "Block leaders will assign a chore schedule. Duties will rotate weekly according to the chart. Today, in honor of the new first year students, the third years will handle all duties, but we will begin the rotation at breakfast tomorrow. Those on preparatory shift need to be in the dining hall at 6am. Breakfast is served at 7. Lunch is at noon. Dinner at 6. Snacks are available for purchase from four to five daily, or from vending machines in the dormitory lobby."

Sanada tuned out the remainder of the speech, having read the orientation booklet after he finished his ironing. Instead, he shifted his eyes to look to his obviously bored roommate. Akutsu's shoulders were slumped and he had shifted down in his chair. If Sanada were that tall, he'd probably be doing the same; Akutsu towered over all but the third year students. It must be embarrassing…if Akutsu ever felt embarrassment. Sanada wasn't sure his roommate ever felt an emotion beyond pissed off, though he supposed his former teammates would've said the same thing about him.

Shaking away from thoughts of his former school, Sanada focused his attention on his placemat and waited for the third years to bring lunch to the table.

******

Staring was fucking rude, and Akutsu would tell the bastards in the dining hall so as soon as he could. He'd already noted three or four guys who looked like they needed some sense smacked into them. Just because he was taller than the other new kids didn't give everyone a free pass to gawk at his ass.

To top it off, he had to sit next to his pissy roommate who hadn't said a damn word to him since their first meeting. Jin came back from his workout to find the other boy reclined on his bed reading the orientation book, earbuds in place, iPod resting on his stomach. Sanada had given a nod toward the pressed uniforms resting on Jin's bed then gone back to his reading.

On the bright side, Jin met a few other first years at the gym and thought Nakajima from room 23 would make a good lackey, sturdy but spineless. The kid wasn't too bright, though, so Jin would have to find someone else to do his homework…or steal Sanada's if they were in the same class.

"Please pass me a napkin."

Jin started at Sanada's request. He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he failed to notice the meal had started. Wordlessly he plucked a napkin from the nearby holder and handed it to his roommate.

"Thank you." Sanada took the napkin and dabbed a spot at the corner of his mouth. The action was so prissy, Jin burst out laughing.

Under the table, Sanada kicked him. Jin kicked back, harder, and the table shook.

"Is there a problem?" their block leader, Matsumoto, asked. 

"He gets leg spasms when he sits improperly," Sanada said, his eyes meeting Jin's. There was a vicious glint in them, a challenge. "If he starts to slouch, please remind him."

"Bitch," Akutsu hissed, straightening up in his chair and feeling, yet again, all those eyes buzzing over his skin. 

"Improper posture is bad for your health and your karate practice." Sanada picked up his bowl of miso soup and sipped at it.

Akutsu wanted to say that broken bones were bad for Sanada's tennis game, but their school didn't have a tennis club and Jin hadn't bothered to find out what Sanada was planning to do with himself. He made a note to raid the other boy's things while Sanada was in the bathroom. But, more importantly, "How did you know about the karate?" he asked once the table had settled back down.

Sanada chewed a mouthful of food and sipped at his water before answering. "Process of elimination. None of the other clubs would suit your background."

"What the hell do you know about my background?" Jin's fists itched to plant themselves into that placid face, to blacken those bored eyes, smash that noble nose.

"Eat." Sanada pointed to Akutsu's chopsticks. "This isn't the time."

Akutsu's fist slammed down onto the table. "Fucking make it the time!"

Matsumoto cleared his throat. "Akutsu, the dorm supervisor would like to see you."

Akutsu stood and kicked his chair out of the way. 

Two to go.

*****

Sanada returned to his room with the slight hope that he'd find Jin packing his bags. Instead, he found Jin's half of the room in shambles. The desk drawers were scattered on the floor, the bedclothes were draped over the desk chair, and the clothing that had been hung in the closet was on the floor. This was all fine. What was not fine was that the clothes Sanada had taken the time to iron earlier were now crumpled on the floor.

The stomping and snarling alerted Sanada to his roommate's arrival before the door opened. Sanada picked the wrinkled articles up off the floor and shoved them into Akutsu's face. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Get that shit out of my face." Akutsu batted the clothes away. He was distracted enough by the laundry that he didn't see Sanada's fist coming. There was no other reason Sanada could think of for his punch to land so solidly against Akutsu's cheek.

"I didn't iron these so you could—" 

Akutsu rushed him, sending them both to the floor. "If you'd kept your damn mouth shut, none of this would be happening."

Sanada would have commented that he'd tried that and Akutsu had just bitched to stop ignoring him, but Akutsu's fist was moving toward Sanada's stomach. Sanada twisted to avoid the punch and, purely on accident, kneed Akutsu in the groin. The other boy howled and leapt away.

"Let's get this cleaned up before the dormitory supervisor gets here." Sanada had no doubts that their small tussle had been heard and reported. He was not, under any circumstances, letting Akutsu's idiocy damage his reputation with the staff. 

"Fuck you." 

A knock sounded on the door. On the way to answer it, Sanada kicked Akutsu's things out of his half of the room. If the other boy wanted to destroy this opportunity, fine. He wasn't going to take Genichirou with him.

*****

The sofa in the school counselor's office was much more comfortable than Jin's bed. It was an ugly olive green, though, and pleather so the backs of his legs would stick to it if he got too hot.

"I see from your file that you have difficulty with self-control." The counselor, a woman with a face like a raisin that'd been rehydrated then stepped on, smiled and patted Jin's leg. "I think, with some work, we can get you back to a place where you're able to function normally with your peers."

This was not Jin's first visit to a counselor; he'd been having mandatory monthly visits since primary school. Looked like high school would be no exception. He sighed and sank deeper into the sofa. "I don't need to function with a group of assholes."

"Tell me about your roommate."

Akutsu's hand automatically cupped his still aching crotch. "Don't you have a file on him?"

The counselor took a few notes. "Of course I do, but I want to know how you see him. Tell me about the Sanada Genichirou that you know." 

What the hell was he supposed to say? Sanada Genichirou was The Emperor of Rikkaidai, one of the greatest tennis players in the national youth circuit. He got good grades, had talented friends, and couldn't do a fucking thing wrong. He was also pretty good at ironing stuff (it was pretty nice of him to offer to do Jin's stuff, too), listened to shitty pop music with his iPod volume up too high, and had, in the course of five hours, pissed Akutsu off more times than anyone else ever had in a single day.

The counselor cleared her throat.

Jin groaned when he followed her eyes to where his hand was rubbing in tight, slow circles. 

"Now then, about your roommate—"

*****

After half an hour, the mess got on Sanada's nerves and he cleaned it up. The hanging clothes he placed back in the closet, and the other things he folded into Akutsu's suitcase. He took the bed linens to the lobby office and exchanged them for fresh ones before making the bed.

He began to feel optimistic when Akutsu didn't turn up for dinner. Perhaps the counselor was recommending the volatile boy be sent back home. Perhaps Sanada would get a new, sane roommate or, even better, get a room to himself.

"Didn't you used to go to Rikkaidai?" a student at the table—Sanada didn't catch his name—asked during the meal.

"Yes." The salmon on Sanada's plate looked a little less appetizing.

"Why would you want to give that up for a place like this?"

Sanada set his chopsticks down and looked right at the other boy. "I like the quiet," he said. He continued his stare a few more seconds, a technique he'd picked up in a book on leadership. _Stare down the weak-willed and they'll easily follow._ He'd put many a first year in his place with the technique…and a few teachers as well.

As expected, the subject was dropped in favor of talk on movies, TV programs, and music idols. Nobody asked where Sanada's missing roommate might be.

"Hey, is it true that third years all get singles?" one boy asked their block leader.

Matsumoto swallowed before answering. "Yep. Third years are in a separate building except for the block leaders. The rooms're the same size, but they're singles. It's mostly to accommodate them for exam season."

There was a collective sigh of understanding around the table. The exhaustion of exams was still heavy on their eyelids even though the exams were a month in the past. Sanada's family was understanding when his bedroom light didn't turn off until 3am, though they were less understanding when frustration caused him to hurl his books at the walls. Hopefully the third year dorm rooms had thick walls.

"Oh! Tomorrow's Saturday so club activities will be starting. You can go check 'em out if you want. If you've already got a club in mind, feel free to join in." Matsumoto drank down the last of his water and refilled it from a pitcher. "I don't know about other clubs, but table tennis is meeting in the gym at 9."

Sanada's mind drifted to the kendo equipment sitting in his closet. The car ride and excitement of the day had made him stiff in the shoulders and in need of stretching. If Akutsu stayed gone, there'd be enough room to practice a few stances. If not, the lobby would work, though he didn't look forward to the inevitable gawkers.

"Oooh! Dessert!"

Sanada looked up at the cry to find a piece of strawberry chiffon cake being placed in front of him. Upon seeing it, all thinking stopped completely and he lost himself in the sweetness of one of the many joys his father thought the household better without. While dessert might become commonplace after a few months, Sanada was determined to enjoy each and every sugary delight as if it were his last. And, if Akutsu didn't come back, he'd gladly eat the other boy's share, too.

*****

The raisin pulled some administrative voodoo and saved Akutsu's ass in exchange for weekly sessions to help him "adapt to a new environment and mindset." Whatever the hell that meant. All Jin cared about was his mother and how she wouldn't find out that Jin's roommate was causing him to "react negatively" to his "oversensitivity to human interactions." It took Dr. Hirashige—that was the raisin's name—twenty minutes to explain that "oversensitivity" wasn't a fancy way of saying "wuss."

Now, all Akutsu really wanted was a smoke before he had to go back into his room and deal with Sanada. His fingers itched to feel the paper between his fingers, and his tongue slid over the spot on his lips where he usually held his stick. Hell, even the pansy gum his mom bought him would help a little, but the gum was in his bedside drawer, tucked neatly behind his karate belt. 

Just as Jin began to ponder shaking down third years until he found some smokes or, at the very least, got information on the campus' smoking spot, Sanada strode down the hall from the direction of the baths. 

"Have you been expelled?" Sanada asked, stopping shoulder to shoulder. He smelled like sulfur; he must've been in the simulated hot spring.

"Don't be stupid. They don't expel you for shit like that." A cigarette would be really, really nice after a soak, maybe a beer afterward, though Akutsu doubted the prissy kids at the school had the guts to sneak it in.

Sanada shrugged. The movement drew Akutsu's eyes to his lean frame. Sanada looked a lot bigger when he had clothes on. 

"I'm going back to the room." Sanada continued on his previous path and Jin, having nothing better to do, followed, his tongue still stroking the spot where a cigarette ought to be.

*****

By the time Monday morning rolled around, Sanada was beginning to doubt his ability to tolerate living in the same room as Akutsu. It wasn't the other boy's temper that was the problem—Sanada had dealt with Kirihara and could therefor handle any kind of tantrum fate could throw his way—the problem was that Akutsu was, under the punches and the obscenities, a horribly busybody.

"Where'd you get those bruises from?" Akutsu smacked out through his morning nicotine gum. "You didn't have 'em when you changed last night."

Sanada pulled on a white undershirt. "Kendo practice. Sometimes it takes a while for them to show color." 

"You don't get bruises like that from sticks. Besides, you wear all that armor." Akutsu fumbled with his tie in the full length mirror on the back of their door. "Who hit you? If you say you fell down the stairs, I'll put a few more on you."

"It's none of your business." Sanada smoothed out his undershirt and tucked it into his pants. He winced when his fingertips brushed a particularly sensitive spot. 

"Some guy hits my roommate, then it's my business." Finally managing to get his tie knotted, Akutsu moved toward Sanada's half of the room. "Besides, if I have to look at your ugly ass every day, it's better if it's not beaten to shit."

There was something very uncomfortable about the slow way Akutsu's eyes trailed over the places Sanada's bruises were hidden. "If you don't like it, then stop looking." Sanada quickly pulled on his uniform shirt, a second layer of protection against Akutsu's scowling, burning stare. "You don't play kendo without a few bruises. You've got them, too, I'd imagine."

"Not a damn one." Jin stepped closer, beyond the imaginary line separating their areas of control. "Except where you hit me with the damn broom yesterday."

Sanada grinned. "Pick your things up properly and you won't fall into my broom while I'm cleaning. Tripping on your underwear is pathetic. You might also work on dodging. I suspect it'll improve your karate performance." 

In the two days since their initial meeting, they'd fallen into a pattern of verbal sparring that Genichirou was embarrassed to admit he enjoyed. Nothing he said would deeply hurt Akutsu, and nothing Akutsu could say would ever have a lasting impact on Sanada's self-esteem. As such, Sanada felt free to say whatever came to mind. It always stayed inside the room—nobody on campus would understand that it was all harmless and in a sort of fun—and it seemed as though Akutsu's temper was settling down as a result of being able to talk out his anger, even if the discussions were nothing more than insults.

"You still didn't tell me what asshole hit you." If only Akutsu would mind his own business. 

Sanada moved around Akutsu and toward the mirror to do up his own tie. "There was a misunderstanding between myself and a senpai. It's not important." The senpai in question had heard of Sanada's tennis skills and thought Sanada unfit to join the kendo team. He cornered Sanada in the equipment room and attempted to threaten him out of the club. He managed to land a few punches before Sanada laid him out in a single blow. Genichirou didn't anticipate any further issues from that particular senpai nor any of his friends who had been mutely standing in the background during the incident.

"Is that shit eating grin because you taught the bastard a lesson or because you can tie your own tie without your mommy's help?" 

Unable to help himself, Sanada started laughing. 

"What's so funny?" Akutsu stormed forward and pushed Sanada from behind, sending him into the door. He kept Genichirou pinned with an arm across his back. "You teach that guy a lesson or not?" Akutsu leaned in, his chest pressing against Sanada's back, shoving him into the mirror. The frame pushed into Sanada's shoulder.

"Get off." The mirth was gone from Sanada's voice, replaced with the stone cold solidity of The Emperor. 

Akutsu leaned forward more, molding himself completely to Sanada's back. The minty chemical smell of nicotine gum crawled along Sanada's shoulder and tickled his nose as Akutsu snarled, "If you're letting some asshole beat the crap out of you, I'll kick your ass right here and now."

Sanada tried to push back and froze. The long, solid ridge pressing against him was not what he expected. "He won't be bothering me again, now get away from me. It's time to get to the gym for the assembly." 

With a grunt, Akutsu backed away. "You go ahead, I got some stuff to take care of."

Sanada threw on his blazer, grabbed his bag, and strode from the room as fast as dignity would allow.

*****

Nothing could break Sanada Genichirou. If Akutsu was certain of anything, he was certain of that. Fate had saddled him with one of the toughest bastards in the world, and it was fucking fantastic. No matter what Jin said, no matter what he did, Sanada could take it without whining or crying like a girl. As the still dark circle on Akutsu's cheek attested, Sanada could take care of himself and didn't need anyone riding to his rescue.

Still…

"Shit." Akutsu threw his blazer down on his bed and kicked the bedframe. If anyone was going to stomp down Sanada's pride and make him submit, it was going to be him, Akutsu Jin, not some third year too afraid of Sanada's talents to face him fairly in a match. 

Okabe, the captain of the karate team, was friends with Ishiura, the spineless shit who, even after Sanada gave him a beating, was trying to force Sanada into changing clubs because Ishiura didn't have the skill to keep a team together without scaring away talented first years. If the conversation Akutsu overheard was any indication, three first years, skilled swordsmen all, had already changed clubs because they didn't want to deal with the bullying.

Sanada's key had Akutsu hurrying to look like he hadn't been about to rip the curtains off their rings. "Ah, fuck," he swore, trying to find something to do. As the door opened, Akutsu started taking off his uniform shirt.

Sanada entered the room and locked the door behind him. He was silent, but his eyes were focused sharply and his feet stomped down.

"Dinner's in half an hour," Jin said, hanging his shirt up in his closet. "Tonight's curry." What the fuck was he doing, chatting about dinner? Just looking at Sanada's wrinkled shirt Akutsu could tell someone had tried messing with him again. It was only Thursday of their first week and Sanada'd come back to the room with new bruises and scratches every day. 

Sanada grunted acknowledgement. 

"Who the fuck was it today?" Jin asked, taking the two long steps needed to come up behind where Sanada was glaring at a wall. It only took a push to send Sanada sprawling across his bed. It was pathetically easy to block the punches Sanada sent to keep Jin from peeling off his uniform shirt and hiking up his undershirt. The bastards must've put up a good fight to wear him out so much. "Where'd they get you?"

While Sanada's arms were pinned by his shirt, his legs were free and he twisted, kicking Jin in the back of the head. "Get off me."

"Was it Ishiura again or some other guy?" Jin adjusted, hooking his legs around Sanada's to prevent another kick. It was a variation of a judo hold he'd seen in his P.E. textbook. With Sanada's legs in check, Akutsu was able to let his hand roam over Sanada's chest, seeking out any damage deeper than the purple spots that dotted the surprisingly soft skin. 

Sanada hissed when Akutsu's fingers probed a spot just under his left ribs. 

The sound went straight to Jin's core. He leaned forward, pushing himself into the boy under him. "Listen and listen good. If anyone else touches you, he's going to the fucking hospital. Got it?" Jin's fingers tightened in Sanada's undershirt, securing Sanada's hands, before Jin's tongue moved along Sanada's collarbone. The taste was disgusting, a cross between salt water and overcooked oyster, but a small sound snuffled out of Sanada's nose and Jin wanted to eat the other boy alive just so he could hear it again. 

"It's none of your business." Sanada's hips arched up. 

Jin ground down, sliding his hardness alongside Sanada's and biting down on an exposed shoulder when the pulse through his stomach and spine started to dig a scream out of him. When the wave passed, he continued to move slowly against the body beneath him. "If you're too chickenshit to take care of it, then I'll do it for you." He let go of Sanada's shirt and reached down to work at Sanada's belt.

With his hands free, Sanada was able to push Akutsu away and onto the floor. The shock of impacting the floor stunned Jin long enough to allow Sanada to reverse their positions. "I can take care of myself," Sanada growled. He flicked his wrist and Jin's belt buckle was undone. "If you fuck up any of my plans, _you'll_ be the one sent to the hospital. Am I clear?" 

Jin's mind began to fog over when Sanada slid his zipper down and reached inside. "Yeah." He pushed up and into the callused fingers slowly wrapping around him. "Shit, that’s good."

Sanada squeezed, almost painfully, then pulled away. "Clean yourself up. It's time for dinner." Sanada stepped away, leaving Akutsu and his leaking cock on the floor, both twitching ever so slightly.

*****

Sanada paused at the entrance to the school's dojo. There was a sick churning in his stomach and, as he looked at the three steps leading up into the practice space, he heard Yukimura's voice in his head, a memory from their first year at Rikkai.

_We can't just be number one, Sanada. We have to destroy everything and rebuild it. It's the only way they'll accept us and the only way we'll be able to shape things as we like._

As a middle school student, Sanada wanted what Yukimura was striving for: a tennis revolution and a nationals level team to shape as they saw fit. Now, though…

"You going in?" Kita, a fellow first year with a sloppy forward rush, set his hand down on Sanada's shoulder. "The third years have really been giving you hell. I wish they'd spend more time practicing and less time bragging. Know what I mean?"

Through the open door Sanada could see the captain warming up with his three friends, all of them regulars and all of them below Sanada's level because, while Sanada had practiced tennis daily during middle school, he maintained a regular and vigorous kendo training schedule to keep his skills in prime condition.

"It would be nice if somebody would just put them in their place before they scare away the rest of the team." Kita's hand gave Sanada's shoulder a squeeze before he stepped away and up the stairs. "See ya inside!"

Sanada could do what Kita was asking. He could walk into the dojo, challenge his senpai, and beat them all without blinking. What he would not do was shoulder the burden that came with ousting a regime. Sanada had no intention or desire to lead the kendo team. He wanted to be a quiet member who won his matches and let someone else take care of everything else. 

"Hey, tennis kid! You just gonna stand there?" 

Sanada's fingers twitched around his equipment bag. Bruises he could endure. Idiotic screaming he could endure.

"Maybe he finally realized that he's not good enough and he's too afraid to come in."

Some things, though, were beyond Sanada's endurance. Sanada Genichirou was not afraid, and anyone who believed otherwise would be crushed. Eyes forward, Sanada entered the dojo, resolved to destroy the abomination that was the kendo club and resigned to shoulder the burden of its reconstruction.

*****

Akutsu reclined back on the olive green sofa and exhaled deeply. 

"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked. 

"I need a smoke. Bad." He probably shouldn't be saying stuff like that to a member of the school staff, but she said there was some sort of confidentiality thing going on, so he could say anything he wanted and not get busted for it. No way was he telling her about last night, though. Well, not the good parts.

"How would you rate your stress on a scale from one to ten?" She wrote a note down on her clipboard and paused, waiting for him to answer.

Jin stopped and thought a minute. He wanted to say ten, but he hadn't punched anyone all day, even when he ran across that bastard Ishiura on his way to karate practice. He even did a little bit of homework and answered a few questions in class. Maybe Sanada's hand on his dick had some sort of freakish mellowing effects.

"Two," Jin said after a small snicker at the idea of asking Sanada to grope him and what the other boy's face might look like when he said it was for medicinal purposes.

"That's very good. Why did you say you needed nicotine if you're not stressed?"

An image of Sanada's bare chest that morning came to mind along with Jin's need to run his hands over the tight abdominals, trail his tongue around the toned pectorals. "Haven't had one in a while," he said, licking his lips. "It's habit and stuff."

"Your file indicates that your mother is sending you nicotine gum to aid in quitting your habit, and the school has agreed to let you use it. Are you finding that the gum isn't satisfying your cravings?"

There were a lot of cravings that weren't getting satisfied. "My roommate's been in some shi…trouble. Maybe I'm worried." He wasn't worried; he was pissed off and tired of sitting around doing nothing instead slamming the asshole's face into a wall. 

"Have you spoken to your roommate about this?"

"That didn't go so well." Jin adjusted himself at the reminder of their talk the night before.

"What happened?" Dr. Hirashige set her clipboard on her lap and gave Akutsu her full attention.

What the fuck could he tell her? "I told him he should stop being a wuss. We fought, I skipped dinner, and now he's ignoring me."

"And how does him ignoring you make you feel?"

Horny. "It pisses me off."

"Are you angry that he's ignoring you, or are you angry because you feel he doesn't value your concern?" The clipboard was up again, and the doctor was writing quickly.

"I'm angry because I could take care of those assholes in fifteen minutes. There's no fucking reason for him to be getting the shit knocked out of him every day. Why the fuck should I let some lameass go pummeling my roommate, huh? And what the fuck? Sanada can take those guys. Does he like getting hit, because if he does then he doesn't need to go slutting around; he can just come back to the room and I'll slap him around some."

"Do you think your roommate receives sexual pleasure from these fights?"

"What? Who the hell said that?"

The doctor read back Jin's words.

"Shit, I didn't mean it like that." He tried to sink into the couch, hide away from the doctor's curious eyes.

"How did you mean it?"

Jin stared at the ceiling and tried to order his thoughts so he didn't sound like a moron this time. "I'm just sayin' that if somebody's gonna pick on him, it's gonna be me. If he needs anything, he can just get it from me. Everyone else should just keep their hands off." 

"I see." She scribbled more. "Have you expressed these feelings to him?"

"Yeah. He told me to fuck off, said he had plans and I should mind my own business." It had been said a little different, but he couldn't tell her the exact words, the ones he'd repeated in his head over and over in the shower that morning. He didn't want to remember the gravely catch of Sanada's angry voice, didn't want to share the whole of that moment with anyone. Besides, if he told her that Sanada had bested him, he'd look like a loser. 

"Part of being in a relationship is learning to allow your partner space."

"Hold it, I never said anything about a relationship." 

The doctor held up her hand, halting Jin's oncoming rant. "Relationship is merely a word we use to describe the interaction between two people. It's often used to describe romantic involvement, but we counselors use it in a broader sense. You and I, for example, have a relationship as counselor and patient. You and your roommate share a relationship as well." She looked like she was going to say more but paused. "I hope that clears things up, and I'm sorry I didn't express myself properly."

"Uh…it's fine. Sorry I yelled." It was the first time anyone'd ever apologized to him and the first time he'd ever reciprocated. It was nice to not get the blame for someone else's stupidity. Maybe the raisin wasn't so bad after all.

"However, while we're on the topic, have you ever experienced any sexual thoughts in regards to your roommate?"

Fucking bitch.

*****

There was not a muscle that didn't ache as Sanada opened the door to his room. He'd gone rounds with every regular player in the club, then all the sub-regulars. He'd won every match, but now he was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed and sleep through the weekend. Tomorrow would be a new dawn for the kendo club, though, and he had a practice schedule to prepare as well as homework to attend to.

Akutsu looked up from a comic when Sanada closed the door. "Sit your ass down. We're gonna talk."

The last thing Sanada wanted after eighteen consecutive matches was to deal with Akutsu. If they got into a fight now, Sanada knew he didn't have the strength to win. "Not now. I'm tired."

"Why? Been acting like a punching bag again?" Akutsu rolled off his bed and reached Sanada in three long strides. "I told you before, anyone who hurts you is gonna pay for it."

Sanada stepped back to avoid the hands trying to slide under his shirt. "That's over. I took care of it."

Akutsu stepped back. "You kick his ass?"

Sanada had done more than kick Ishiura's ass. He annihilated him. During their match not one of Ishiura's swings hit home, and every one of Sanada's cut down the third year, hitting hard enough that, by the end of the match, Ishiura was black and blue beneath his armor. All of the seniors who'd followed Ishiura's lead in the past week were dealt a similar brand of justice. A few, seeing the pain of their friends, ran before it was time for their matches.

"You just gonna stand there laughing or are you gonna answer my damn question?" While his tone was gruff, Akutsu was back on his bed, comic in hand, a slight smile twitching at the edges of his mouth.

"Take a look at him during dinner. That should answer your questions." 

Akutsu snorted and brought his comic closer. "Whatever. Take a shower; you smell."

"I thought you wanted to talk."

"If you don't get your smelly ass out of here, I'll start gagging. We'll talk later." He peered over the top of the comic. "Or are you so worn out that I need to carry you to the showers like a girl?"

A knot of tension Sanada hadn't realized was there burst between his shoulders and he collapsed onto his bed in laughter.

"What the fuck's so funny?"

He could just imagine Akutsu lumbering through the halls, kicking at the other residents to get out of his way then guarding the door to the showers like a dog until Sanada was finished.

"Nothing," Sanada wheezed as he tried to regain his composure. "I'm going." He quickly grabbed his towel and toiletries set and left the room, the occasional chuckle slipping out as he made his way down the hall.

*****

Where Akutsu was the Get the Fuck Out of My Face world champion, Sanada seemed to be the Biggest Kissass Magnet on the Planet. An hour after Sanada came back from his shower, losers started knocking on their door, asking to talk to him.

"The fuck's all this?" Akutsu asked when the fifth kid showed up, knees quaking like Sanada had laid claim to his soul and was about to crush it.

"It's kendo club business." Sanada looked over a piece of paper the kid brought while the twerpy thing shivered and shook in the doorframe.

"It's fucking annoying is what it is." Akutsu snatched the paper and read over it. "Why do you give a crap about some tournament lineup? It's not your job."

The kid in the doorframe squeaked in horror when Akutsu crumpled up the paper and threw it back at him. "He's not your captain. Deal with this shit yourselves and leave him alone." A twitch of Akutsu's upper lip was all it took to send the kid running off down the hall. "And if anyone knocks on this fucking door tonight, he's dead!" Akutsu assumed from the silence that fell over the hall that his message was received and he shut the door. 

"Mind your own business." Sanada looked like something was crawling up his ass and both tickled and stung like a bitch.

"My room, my business. Besides, you look like shit and you said you wanted to rest. They wanna talk to you, they can do it after dinner." Jin looked at the clock and frowned. "We've got about an hour so get your ass on the bed and take a nap."

Sanada sat on the side of his bed and sighed. "I—"

Akutsu wasn't in the mood to hear Sanada's tale of woe, which he'd more or less pieced together from the blabbering idiots that visited earlier. "Shut up and sleep. I'll wake you up." Stupid Rikkai bastards and their need to be in charge of everything; it was going to make Sanada pissier than he already was, especially since Akutsu got the feeling Sanada didn't want all these losers depending on him. The raisin said Sanada was the type of guy to get caught up in other people's problems too easily, which was why he acted like an asshole. If people didn't want to be near him, they wouldn't try to make him run their lives for them. 

Sanada's snoring bit into Akutsu's thoughts and prompted him to search through his dirty laundry pile for his headphones. If the snoring, which Sanada'd only started last night, was a sign that Sanada was getting a cold, Jin was kicking his roommate out. The newcomer's karate tournament was in two weeks and Jin needed to train, kick ass, and send a first place medal home to his mom so she wouldn't be tempted to come and check up on him.

Jin turned on his iPod and flipped through his playlists until he came across one titled "Loud." He cranked the volume up loud enough to drown out Sanada's snoring and grabbed his history book. He might as well do something useful. Thinking about Sanada's mental issues wasn't going to keep Akutsu's mom off his case or give him the grades he needed to stay an active member of the karate team. All thinking about Sanada would do was make him pissed off because Sanada wasn't the nice, docile roommate Jin wanted, one to do his homework and suck his dick when the need arose, which was far too often now that Akutsu knew what Sanada's big, calloused fingers felt like and how tight that hand could clench around him.

Jin hissed at the warm pulse that shot through him with the memory. It was a one-time thing and he wasn't some sissy who mooned over people. He just needed to find someone to get him off and he'd be fine. For the first time, Akutsu missed Yamabuki and its battalion of eager, easily scared freshman. They were never particularly skilled, but they got the job done without drama.

After dinner, Akutsu decided, he was going for a smoke.

********

Sanada awoke to find the room empty and a large piece of paper taped to the door. 

_Your snoring was annoying so I went out. You're probably getting sick, so rest your ass down some more and I'll bring you something to stuff your face with later._

Akutsu's handwriting was surprisingly legible. Sanada expected any notes from his roommate to be scrawled out like a serial killer's and laced with misspelled words. He wondered if Akutsu might have studied calligraphy at some point; his characters certainly held the flare of one who'd trained in the art of the brush.

Sanada tossed the letter into the burnable garbage can and removed his pajamas from the tiny dresser at the foot of his bed. His limbs felt heavy as he changed from his everyday clothes to pajama bottoms. If Akutsu was bringing food, he might as well put off changing into the shirt until after he'd eaten. Besides, it was strangely warm in the room.

Changed, he dragged himself to the mirror to check his bruises. The ones from earlier in the week had faded from purple to green, and the few that he had from the day's matches were barely noticeable. With any luck, they'd all be gone by the following week and Akutsu would stop whining about them. 

"Stupid," Sanada grumbled to himself and fell back onto the bed. "What was I thinking?" He raised his tingling hand in front of him. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the friction of Akutsu's skin in his grasp, could still see Akutsu's pupils expand and contract in waves counter to the movement of his hips. He could hear the wet gasps as they moved out of Akutsu's smoker's lungs and dug into his stomach so deep that he'd jerked off to the memory every day since, and still the sound resonated in him, stirring him up whenever he was stupid enough to recall it.

It was only 6:45. Dinner would last a while yet. If he hurried, he might be able to—

"You better be in the fucking room." Akutsu's voice preceded the jiggling of a key in the lock. Sanada took a deep breath and moved his hand out from where it had been sliding down his lower abdomen. 

******

Bringing food back to the room was a lot harder than Akutsu anticipated. First, the staff thought Akutsu was trying to cover up something, then they got all concerned that Sanada was sick and needed medical attention. A few of the dweebs from the kendo club asked just as many questions before they started boring Akutsu to death with their retelling of Sanada's matches against the third years that afternoon. Some of them even started trailing Akutsu back to the room like the rat dogs they were. 

"You better be in the fucking room," he growled when the last of the shits finally realized he wasn't going to let them in. He didn't hear any snoring so Sanada was either awake or out. If the bastard wasn't resting, Akutsu would beat the crap out of him. He hadn't just braved all that annoying crap for nothing.

He stomped into the room, locked the door, and put the food he'd braved idiots for on Sanada's desk. Only then did he turn to his roommate.

Sanada's hard-on would probably be visible from space. It strained at the leg of his pajama pants, pushing at the fabric until the cotton was almost see-through. It was long and thicker than Jin would have believed from the few times he'd seen Sanada naked in the shower rooms and, one time, in the simulated hot spring. Even Sanada's morning wood hadn't seemed anything more than passingly impressive. It was by far larger than Akutsu's own and, considering Sanada wasn't nearly as tall or broad as his attitude suggested, it seemed kind of stupid for a guy that size to have a cock that big. It just proved the point the Sanada was a fucking showoff.

"Stop staring." Sanada got up off the bed, his pajamas still obscenely tented, and opened one of the bento boxes Akutsu brought. "Thanks."

Akutsu sat on his bed and watched Sanada wolf down the meal. As the other boy ate, his erection slowly calmed until, halfway through the second bento box of the three Jin'd brought, Sanada's pajama pants rested smoothly against his thigh once more. Now that the distraction had gone and he could look somewhere other than Sanada's crotch, Akutsu cleared his throat.

"We've gotta talk about…" Akutsu pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and read it, "…your constant need to take care of others even though you come to resent those you offer your protection to." The raisin said their 'relationship' would go a lot better if Akutsu and Sanada talked when things bugged them. She even helped Akutsu write a few smart-sounding things about why Sanada was a crazyass bastard who needed to stop hanging out with crybabies.

"What?"

"This ain't Rikkaidai. You don't have to take over the team just because you beat everyone else. All that means is that you're better so you don't have to take their crap." Akutsu stole a fried shrimp from the box and sat down on the side of Sanada's bed, his knees bobbing up and down as his legs shook with the effort of keeping his language in check. According to the raisin, you sounded willing to compromise if you didn't call your roommate a spineless shit for brains.

"How would you know anything about it?" Sanada was still stuffing his face and was almost finished with the second box.

"You think I haven't kicked the ass of every last member of the karate club? Those pansies aren't even half my level. You don't see me looking over training schedules and crap like that, do you? No. I mind my own business and they mind theirs. When the tournaments come, I'll kick ass and they can pretend they had something to do with the school winning even though most of 'em won't even make it through the qualifiers." He fell backwards and stared at the ceiling. Sanada's bed smelled like sweat and the linen spray Sanada used when he ironed stuff. 

"It can't be helped. It's already in motion." Sanada's shoulders slumped down and he stared at the empty second bento box. He sighed and took out the third. "It's only for three years."

"Fuck that." Akutsu sprang from the bed and turned Sanada's chair to face him. "You want to lead, then lead. You don't want to, then don't. It's not some freaking Zen puzzle." 

The corners of Sanada's mouth lifted and he let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. A few seconds later, the laughter ate up the groan and Sanada reclined back in his chair and clutched his stomach as waves a deep hyena laughter slid out of him.

"What's so funny?" Akutsu opened the third bento box and took another fried shrimp. 

"Me." Sanada closed his eyes. "Getting life advice from Akutsu Jin."

"Yeah, real fucking funny. Ha ha." He couldn't help that the last came out almost as a true laugh. He also couldn't help the heat building inside him as he looked at Sanada's flush cheeks and recalled the sight that had greeted him when he walked in. 

"Thanks," Sanada said. "I'll think about what you said."

"You wanna thank me, you can get your hand over here and put it around my cock." 

Sanada set his chopsticks down. "That will never happen again."

Akutsu cupped himself through his uniform slacks. "You seemed pretty good at it. Get a lot of practice over at Rikkai?"

"At my family dojo, actually. And I'm good at everything I do." Sanada's eyes glanced Akutsu's hand. "The answer is still no."

Akutsu hated everyone at the Sanada family's dojo, every last asshole who'd had that hot hand wrapped around him more than once. If Akutsu ever found out who they were, he'd wreck 'em all. 

"I'm goin' out." If Sanada wasn't going to take care of things, Jin needed to find someone who would. He wasn't going to spend his high school career jerking off in the shower. And he still hadn't had that cigarette yet.

****** 

When Sanada woke on Saturday, his mouth tasted like expired miso paste and his limbs felt too heavy to lift. The room was unbearably hot, but he didn't want to chance stripping away the bottoms that clung to his sweaty legs or the t-shirt he'd put on when Akutsu came back the prior evening smelling of smoke and stared at Sanada's chest like he meant to bore a hole through it.

"Shut the fucking alarm off," Akutsu grumbled from across the room. 

Sanada gathered his strength and flung his arm out. The alarm ceased its shrill beeping and flew off the bedside stand and onto the floor. He had ten minutes to retrieve the device before it went off again. All he had to do was move.

"I'm sick," Genichirou sighed on his third failed attempt to sit up in bed. 

Akutsu snorted. "No shit." The other boy got out of bed and snatched up the alarm. "Why the fuck do you set it on Saturday?"

"I want breakfast. Breakfast is at 7." At the thought of the expansive traditional breakfast the school offered daily, Sanada's stomach growled. He tried, once more, to sit up and was almost perpendicular when Akutsu's hand on his chest shoved him back down.

"Tch. I'll get your damn breakfast, but you owe me."

"I'm not paralyzed. I can get it myself." If he tried hard, he might even stumble into the dining hall before all of the good pickles were gone. He'd done more when he was in worse shape. This was nothing.

"If you don't keep your ass in bed, I'll—" Akutsu took a deep breath. "Just stay here. I'll be back." Still in his pajamas, Akutsu stomped out of the room, leaving Genichirou no alternative but to wait and hope Akutsu knew to bring extra daikon pickles and put a little salt on his salmon.

******

Akutsu looked at the medicines lined up on Sanada's desk and frowned. "They all look the same."

"Read the labels," Sanada croaked out of a throat hoarse from three days of coughing. "It's the one for stomach pain."

"You've got two for that." Akutsu picked up the two bottles and brought them to Sanada's bedside. While the other boy read over the labels, Akutsu sat down in the desk chair that had become his constant perch. "Even your damn colds are fucking stubborn," he grumbled. 

"Feel free to room elsewhere. The nurse said it was an option if you were concerned about getting sick."

The last time Akutsu had a cold he was in elementary school. "Then who would take care of your sorry ass, huh? You couldn't even pick up a water bottle yesterday." It was strange to watch his usually pissy roommate quietly sweat through three sets of pajamas and wheeze in his sleep. Akutsu doubted any of those bastards at Rikkai ever watched Sanada vomit into a bucket or had to tilt his head up and hold a water bottle to his lips. None of them woke their asses up early to get him breakfast or hauled out bags of used tissues. 

Sanada opened one of the pill bottles, took out two pills, and held out a hand. Jin placed a newly refilled water bottle into it silently. His stomach twisted when Sanada's fingers slid over his own when grabbing the bottle. If he really wanted to, Akutsu could do anything and Sanada wouldn't be able to stop him. He could slide his hands over the still slightly bruised chest, drag his teeth through the hairs just below Sanada's navel, trail his tongue along the line of flesh just above Sanada's waistband and watch as Sanada writhed and begged Akutsu to suck him.

The pill bottle hit Akutsu between the eyes. "Put it back on the desk and go to class."

Jin snorted at the command and threw the bottle toward the desk. It hit the wall and rolled under the desk. "I'll get it later," he said to Sanada's scowl. "And I'm not going to class, so just go back to sleep."

He knew Sanada was still feeling like shit when there was no argument.

******

All movement stopped when Sanada stepped into the dojo on Thursday. The third years, huddled together near the equipment rack in the corner, regarded him with wary eyes while the first and second years seemed at a loss. Did they come talk to him, alienating them from their senpai, or did they stay away, alienating them from the strongest member of the club? Sanada was familiar with the awkward silence; it was the same one that permeated the Rikkaidai clubhouse on the first day of Yukimura's reign. On that day, Yukimura broke the silence with a string of orders that even the third years were quick to obey.

But this wasn't Rikkaidai.

"What are we doing today?" Sanada asked, his eyes focused on Ishiura. 

The silence continued on and Sanada waited, making no move to control even the movement of the conversation. Finally Ishiura stepped out of his cloud of classmates. 

"Did the nurse clear you for practice?"

Sanada held out the note the nurse'd given him. "I'm clear."

Ishiura took the note. "Well, uh, we're glad you're back. First years are doing swings, but you'll be with the third years for sparring practice."

"Understood." Sanada gave a small bow and took his gear to the back of the dojo where the members kept their bags during practice. 

"Hey, look."

Sanada turned to find Ishiura behind him. "Yes?"

"I was a real jerk to you, and I just wanted you to know that I won't give you any more problems." There was a twitch to Ishiura's smile when he held out his hand. "Let's try to get along, huh?"

The small flinch Ishiura gave when Sanada took his hand was satisfying. "I'll be in your care, captain."

******

Jin exhaled a lungful of smoke and the breeze broke it down into tiny rivulets that curled around the trees of the forest cradling the back of the school. Nakajima from room 23 had a good mouth on him, wet and hot, but it just wasn't tight enough. Still, it was better than nothing.

Akutsu stared down the length of his body at the carefully spiked hair on the head that bobbed on and off of him slowly, like the guy was trying to savor the dick in his mouth. Jin grabbed a handful of spikes, turning Nakajima up to face him. "Hurry it up. I gotta get to practice."

Nakajima smiled as best he could with his mouth stretched out then got back to work, sucking harder and moving faster.

It still wasn't enough. Akutsu took another drag on his cigarette. He'd have to find a way to get another pack soon. He stole this pack from the teacher's room when he went there to get Sanada's homework on Monday. There were only two sticks left.

Nakajima let out a whimper and Akutsu realized he was still holding onto the kid's hair. He let go and used his free hand to rub at his stomach. Man, this guy's blowjobs were really fucking boring. Still, it was better than doing it himself again and imagining that his hand was thicker in the fingers and rougher in the pads, that his grip was stronger…

On the positive, Nakajima wasn't a spitter and swallowed Jin's load down in two smooth undulations of his throat.

Akutsu clapped Nakajima on the shoulder and tucked himself into his pants. "Thanks." He walked away to the sound of Nakajima's zipper rushing down.

*****

Golden Week and Sanada's first trip back home came faster than expected. He was almost sad to leave the campus and board the train for the two hour ride home. His father was going to pick him up at the station and drive them home.

"Why are there so many old people on the train in the morning?" Akutsu kicked his feet up onto the seat next to Sanada. "If you give up your seat to anyone…" Akutsu's threat hung in the air. Sanada expected it was because Akutsu, while volatile, was fairly harmless most days. He certainly wasn't going to beat up an old woman and, after taking the effort to help Sanada through his cold a week prior, it was unlikely he'd raise a hand to his roommate, either. 

"I'm not giving my seat to anyone. Relax." Sanada watched trees whip past them as they rounded through the mountains. There was an hour of scenery before they'd enter into the endless grey of the city. 

Akutsu's sock clad foot impacted with Sanada's leg. "Thanks for inviting me." Akutsu didn't look Sanada in the eye, but his gaze flickered a time or two. Jin said his counselor was making him say thank you ten times a day for…some reason Sanada hadn't been paying attention to.

"I didn't invite you; my mother did. Did you bring your gum? There's no smoking at my house."

Akutsu stuck out a tongue coated in whitish-grey gum. "I'm gonna stop by my mom's place and get some more. She ain't gonna be home most days because she's working, but she said she'd buy some more and leave it in the apartment."

"That's good." Sanada patted the foot still resting against his side. After his cold, Sanada began to see Akutsu in a different light. The other boy wasn't all that bad; he just didn't know how to think before he spoke and had a tendency to solve all of his problems by hitting them. He certainly wasn't the kind of person Sanada usually associated with but, since there was no choice, Sanada would do his best to create an environment in which Akutsu could show the quieter side he'd displayed during Sanada's illness. Some experimentation revealed that Akutsu responded well to quick, light physical stimuli. A touch to the shoulder or a pat on the foot seemed to do more to relax Akutsu than his disgusting nicotine gum. Sanada hadn't heard Akutsu complain about cigarettes all week, and none of the other boy's clothing had the nose-burning stench clinging to them.

Akutsu's toes wiggled, twisting up the fabric of Sanada's pants. Genichirou pulled at the fabric to right it and glanced up; Akutsu was looking out the window. Sanada rested his hand down on his thigh, fingers stretching out to glide over Akutsu's ankle. Without looking away from the blurred treescape, Akutsu's toes resumed kneading Sanada's leg. They continued the ride in silence.

*****

Akutsu figured the best way not to offend Sanada's family was to keep his mouth shut. Sanada's dad was one mean looking bastard, and his mother wasn't far behind. Both paled in comparison to the old fart who glared disapprovingly at Akutsu the moment they stepped into the house. The geezer walked around like a cat, swift and silent. It was fucking unnerving.

"Didn't you play tennis?" Mrs. Sanada asked. "I think I remember you from one of Genichirou's tournaments."

"He played for Yamabuki," Genichirou said. His face was all pinched like he was constipated but trying really hard to get it out.

"Is your school teaching you to answer for other people, Genichirou?" Mrs. Sanada stared down her son and Akutsu thought he was starting to understand why Sanada was such an asshole.

Genichirou turned and bowed to Akutsu. "I apologize for my rudeness." His eyes caught Jin's as he rose and the warning flashing in them made Jin's stomach burn. 

"Go prepare the dojo for tonight's classes. You can show your friend around when you've finished." Mrs. Sanada left and, watching her, Akutsu's spine ached. Nobody needed to stand that straight all the time. Nobody.

"You can come with me or you can stay inside." Sanada craned his neck toward the back of the house. "The dojo's next door."

"I'm gonna go home and get some stuff." He was also going to smoke, maybe find someone in his old neighborhood to give him a quick one, then shower it all off before coming back. "I'll be back later."

Sanada shrugged. "Call if you're not coming back for dinner. Or at all."

The remark that he wasn't going to ditch Sanada stalled on Akutsu's tongue because, though he wanted to say it, he wasn't really sure it would be true, and Akutsu Jin was a lot of things, but he was never a filthy liar.

******

The day passed and Sanada didn't hear from Akutsu. He assumed the other boy was back home and resuming his habit of smoking and fighting for no reason in particular. That was fine. So long as Akutsu's behavior didn't reflect on Sanada in any way, Jin could do whatever he liked. 

Genichirou was kept busy with cleaning the dojo, assisting and participating in the advanced lessons, then cleaning again. The routine was welcome and helped the time pass before he had to explain Jin's absence to his family.

"Hey, good to see you again."

Sanada didn't look up from the spot of floor he was polishing. The voice rolling over him and wiggling into his gut was just one more thing he wanted to leave behind when he went off to school. "Sugimoto." 

Bare feet smacked against the hardwood and stopped in the corner of Sanada's vision. "You didn't tell me you were going away for school. It got really lonely around here."

He flinched when a hand trailed down his back, one finger tickling the ridge of his spine. The smart thing to do would be to tell Sugimoto to go home. The smart thing would be to finish polishing the floors, go inside, and call Akutsu to make sure his roommate wasn't in the hospital after a street fight. "I'm busy," Sanada said. "I don't have time right now."

Sugimoto never listened when Sanada said he didn't have time. He always seemed to think that it was Sanada's way of maintaining his dignity as the dojo's heir. His hands, still trailing over Sanada's spine, reached around and he pulled Sanada up to stand in front of him, back to chest. "I missed you."

Sanada closed his eyes as Sugimoto's hands rubbed over his chest, parting the folds of his practice gi and digging into his pectorals, kneading them in handfuls. He didn't mind this, not really, but he knew the situation was horribly, horribly objectiontionable. He should be cleaning like a responsible son, not allowing himself to be felt up by one of the students, especially not—

"I never gave you your graduation present before you left," Sugimoto whispered across the back of Sanada's neck. "Want me to give it to you now?" He trailed his tongue along Sanada's collarbone and circled round, hands working at the deep blue hakama tied about Sanada's waist.

The time to say no was long past. He didn't say no that first day, three years ago, nor any of the countless times that followed. If Sanada were honest, he would admit that he enjoyed it and that Sugimoto was a good, discreet partner who asked for nothing more than Sanada's cock shoved deep down his throat. 

As his hakama fell in a pool at his feet, Sanada stood a bit taller. He ran his fingers over Sugimoto's buzzed head and, as he always did, pressed down to signal his acceptance. He closed his eyes as Sugimoto, the only one who'd ever been able to take all of him without complaint, drew him in and hummed. It was something that, when they first started, used to make Sanada's knees weak. Now, it was merely a nice buzzing addition to the routine and a signal that Sugimoto was comfortable enough for Sanada to start moving, sliding in and out with slow, lazy movements, enjoying the practiced suction and skillful stroking of Sugimoto's tongue.

There was no passion in it, but there was a quiet comfort of home whenever he buried himself in Sugimoto's eager mouth. The quiet settled around him and buffered him from all the responsibilities constantly shoveled on him. In the silent dojo, balls tapping Sugimoto's chin, Sanada's shoulders relaxed and a sigh escaped him moments before his jaw clamped shut to hold back the growl that always wanted to accompany his moment of release. 

Sugimoto swallowed around him, licked him clean, then began the process of dressing him. While Sugimoto fumbled with the strings on the hakama, Sanada gathered his breath and centered himself before reaching out to cup the swell in Sugimoto's sweatpants. 

"You don't have to," Sugimoto said, just like he always did.

Sanada snorted and dove his hand down. "Shut up."

*****

Akutsu did not fucking need to see this. He didn't need to watch some guy slurping at Sanada's crotch like it was the fucking Fountain of Youth. The bastard had to be working his way to 30, easy. Jin had done a lot of things in his life, but he'd never done anything that was obviously so damn stupid. He should take his phone out, snap a photo, and get the asshole sent to jail…right after he chopped the fucker's dick off so Sanada could never touch it again.

The asshole groaned and shot his load on Sanada's hand. Jin was pleased to see Sanada grimace and walk immediately to the sink to wash up. "I need to finish cleaning. You should go." Sanada squirted out a second helping of soap and kept washing, probably to get the scent of old fart off him.

The guy couldn't take a hint and fucking hugged Sanada like he was some kind of teddy bear. "When are you leaving?" The gentle kiss to Sanada's neck was too much and Akutsu kicked the sliding door off its track.

"You've got five seconds to save your ass by running," Akutsu hissed, his body already slipping into an offensive stance. "You stick around after that and I'll rip you apart."

Sanada's shoulders stiffened. The old guy turned, arms spread. "I'll keep you safe. Don't worry."

"One."

Sanada turned and patted the guy on the shoulder. "It's fine. Go."

"Two."

The asshole put his hand on Sanada's face and fucking kissed him. "I'm not going to leave you here with a crazy guy."

"Three." It was an effort to keep his counting even and not just waste the loser.

Sanada scowled. "Don't do that again."

"Four."

"Genichirou, we've been together—"

Five wasn't required. Sanada laid the bitch out himself. "I need to clean the floors," he told Akutsu. "Get him out of here."

Akutsu grabbed the guy by an arm and dragged him out. "We're gonna have a little talk first."

Sanada picked up a dustcloth. "Do as you like."

*****

Jin didn't return until Sanada was rinsing out the last of the grime from his scrubbing cloth. He had scratches across his arms and was bleeding from the left corner of his mouth. His chest rose and fell quickly and Sanada could hear his exhalations from across the dojo.

"Dinner will be ready soon. Do you want the first aid kit?" Genichirou hung the cloth he'd just cleaned on the drying rack, a nice distraction from the queasy realization that Akutsu now had the ability to completely destroy his life and bring shame upon his family dojo all in one phone call.

Akutsu's feet slapped on the floor and Sanada felt each smack as though it were a sock to the stomach. The taller boy spun Sanada around by the shoulders and stared him in the eye. "You got a thing for old guys?" 

It wasn't the invitation to blackmail Sanada was expecting, but Jin's sneer suggested the answer to the question would determine just how horribly he would mangle Sanada's world. Genichirou took a deep breath to center himself. There was nothing he could do but tell the truth and face the consequences of his choices. "He's not old. He's 24." He pressed on through Jin's snort of contempt. "He offered, I accepted. That's all there is to it."

"How many other assholes been giving you offers?" Akutsu's face was uncomfortably close. His breath smelled strongly of mint and, under it, a hint of nicotine. Sanada could hardly chastise Jin for his smoking now, though.

"A few." Seven to be exact, but seven suddenly felt like an uncomfortably large number.

"Like the old guy?" Akutsu took a fistful of Sanada's gi.

"24 isn't old, and no, just other students. Nobody you'd know." Nobody anyone would know, which had been the appeal and the comfort.

Akutsu released Sanada with a shove. "Good. If you're gonna fuck around, keep away from sick bastards like that one. You don't know the kind of shit going on in his head." 

The dojo was quiet. Jin stood, his mouth still bleeding, his eyes meeting Sanada's in an unwavering stare. For the first time, Sanada knew what it felt like to be one of the numerous first years he'd stared into submission. "Understood," he said before Akutsu grew impatient. "I'll get the kit and clean that cut."

Akutsu shrugged. "Whatever. Your mom a good cook? I'm starving."

*****

His mom's café wasn't busy, which was good because Jin didn't like the feeling of all those people wondering why he was sitting at a table by himself, sipping a water and not eating anything. Some of the eyes were accusatory, watching to make sure he didn't steal anything from the table—like he could go out and make a fortune on some crappy flatware and a placemat, and some of them were full of pity, thinking he was some poor, homeless kid who couldn't afford a meal and was just there for the free water. 

"I'll be on break in ten, Jin," his mother said, leaning down to give him a quick peck on the cheek before floating away to tend to a table full of old women ready to place their dessert orders.

Sanada was having lunch with his old team because Yukimura called and told him they'd physically drag him there if he didn't come willingly. Jin would've liked to see them try it, but Sanada was a wuss and agreed even though he stared death at the phone after he hung up. Instead of hanging around Sanada's mother and listening to her complain that her eldest son didn't care enough about his family to come home from college for Golden Week, Akutsu decided to head out to his neighborhood for the day. He was supposed to spend the following day with his mom—it was her day off—so coming a day early shouldn't be a big deal. 

Ikuko, one of the other waitresses, set a seafood doria down in front of him. "On the house," she whispered and pinched his cheek. He didn't smack her because she was his mom's friend and had helped change his diapers. She also picked him up from the police station once when a guy in the neighborhood couldn't take a hint and Akutsu had to explain, in real simple terms, that he wasn't interested in being anybody's bitch.

The food was good but hot and stung against the cut on his mouth. "I shoulda hit him some more," Jin hissed at the cheese caked to his spoon. If he'd hit the asshole more, though, then the guy wouldn't have been able to stumble away, whimpering like the waste of skin he was. Another punch to the gut, one more kick to the knees, and the only way the guy could've left would've been by ambulance. If the ambulance came, the police would want to know why Jin had to kick the crap out of him and Sanada would've been in deep shit. Jin suspected that deep shit in the Sanada house was a lot worse than what it would cost Jin's pride to let the guy walk. The pervert was dead if Jin ever saw him near his roommate again, though. 

"What's wrong? You don't like my cooking?" Michihiro, the cook, turned a chair around and sat next to Jin. 

"It's great. Thanks." Jin took a bite of the molten doria. "Too hot to eat still."

"You looked like you wanted to throw it at someone. I'm gonna take a smoke before your mom's break. Bet it'll cool by the time I'm done." Michihiro crooked his head toward the staff door. "Let's go have a talk."

Jin rose slowly, his side still a bit sore from where the old pervert'd managed to get a hit in. "I ain't gonna smoke with you, though. I quit."

Michihiro quirked a pierced eyebrow. "That a fact? Huh." He reached out and put a hand to Jin's back, guiding him out of the café. "Good for you. The wife keeps telling me to quit, bad for the kids, but I still have one or two when I'm out of the house. Been smokin' for 20 years now. It's a bit late to quit." When they were outside Michihiro lit up, careful to blow his smoke away from Jin.

Damn, that stick looked good. "Mom wants me to stop."

Michihiro snorted. "That didn't stop you before."

Jin didn't have a father and the man before him had filled in whenever Jin'd had questions he couldn't bring to his mother. Michihiro worked two jobs and had a family of his own, but he'd never let Akutsu down.

"I'm real careful to brush my teeth and shit after I smoke now, but my roommate can still tell. He gets this face that pisses me off, like he thinks I'm sneaking around and smoking because I don't have the balls to quit."

"Roommate, huh?" Michihiro smiled around his cigarette. "I got a roommate; I call her my wife." The smile faded as he exhaled a lungful of wonderful, nicotine-laced smoke that undulated in the air, calling to Jin. "That what this's about? Your roommate got a girl?"

He'd never told anyone that he'd rather slam his dick down a tube of sandpaper than ever let some sissy woman touch it, but Michihiro knowing didn't really surprise Jin. The old guy was perceptive, probably because his second job was nighttime muscle for the yakuza. 

"Some old sicko was sucking him off yesterday." 

If he were talking to the raisin—not that he'd ever talk about this shit with her—she would ask him how that made him feel and if he thought that acting out physically was the right way to deal with stress.

Michihiro tapped off some ash and looked into the café's back alley. "The guy still alive?"

"Yeah." Unable to resist, Jin grabbed the stick and took a pull, just one, and handed it back. "Shit," he sighed, the word leaving his lungs in a curl of smoke.

"I tell you about the time Aya and I broke up in college? I'd joined up with the local group for some pocket money and she got pissed, said she wouldn't have anything to do with anyone involved in anything like that." Michihiro took a drag then offered the dwindled stick to Jin, who refused. "She started going out with this guy, real straight-laced bastard with a lot of money. First time I saw 'em together, I beat the guy so well he was in the hospital for a week gettin' his face put back together." He took a final puff then ground the stub out on the wall. "While the ambulance was takin' him away and the police were filling out the paperwork to arrest me, I told her I'd do the same to any asshole who touched my girl."

"And she still married you?" Jin'd never met Aya, but he'd heard her on the phone. She didn't sound like someone who'd take that kind of ultimatum.

"She brought me cookies in jail, told me if I embarrassed her again in front of everyone she would rip my dick off and burn it while I watched." He laughed and pulled out another cigarette. 

"I don't need to hear your old love stories." Jin blushed and looked away at the gentle expression on his mentor's face. The guy went completely soft when he talked about his woman or his kids. 

"Yeah you do, kid." He reached and gave Jin a shove. "Go eat your food so you're not talking to your mom with your mouth full. I'll be in after I finish this."

Jin nodded and did as he was told. The damn doria was still too hot.

*****

The month after Golden Week passed in a flurry as Sanada grappled with midterms and his first official kendo tournament in which he placed an embarrassing second place due to a footing error during the final match. He rarely saw Akutsu except at meals and during the evenings when they were both hunched over their desks, absorbed in either studies or training manuals. Akutsu placed first in his karate tournament and his certificate hung on the wall between their beds. Sanada's second place certificate and medal were in the bottom drawer of his desk and would be mailed home as soon as he got up the nerve to tell his family he'd lost. 

A knock on the door pulled Sanada away from his science textbook. The door wasn't locked—Jin was out for Saturday training—and Sanada wasn't expecting anyone. Hopefully it was just one of Jin's classmates come to borrow the notes Jin'd copied from Sanada. Genichirou tried to explain that, being in different classes, his notes might not be of any use, but Akutsu insisted on copying them anyway and, since he got the fourth best score on the midterm exams, all of Akutsu's classmates were asking to borrow his things. Sanada placed first in his class but had already made it abundantly clear that he didn't aid slackers.

"What?" he said as he opened the door.

Nakajima from down the hall held up a box of small sponge cakes. "My mom sent me this. It's my town's specialty." He pushed the box forward. "I thought you and Akutsu might want some." He craned his neck around Sanada. "Is he here?"

Sanada plucked a cake from the box. "He's at practice." He had no quarrels with Nakajima, though he felt a certain unease whenever the other boy was near. Nakajima had made it clear on several occasions that his reason for choosing an all-boys school was less for academics and more to see how many guys he could coerce into screwing him. Nakajima had a habit of addressing all his questions to Sanada's crotch.

"That's too bad. Mind if I come in?" Nakajima held up the cake box. "You can have his, too, since he's not here." His eyes sunk slowly from Sanada's chest to the waistband of his sweats. "I won't tell."

Sanada bit into the cake, checking to see if another one would be worth the bother. The light, fluffy sweetness melted on his tongue within moments. "Fine." He grabbed a second cake and moved aside to allow Nakajima in.

"Shouldn't you be practicing, too? I thought the kendo team practiced in the afternoon on Saturday." Nakajima turned slowly like he was trying to find something. "Table tennis practice is in the mornings and I sometimes see you on your way when I'm leaving."

"We had a tournament last week. This week is a holiday for recovery." A pause followed, long enough to get on Sanada's nerves. "Why are you here?" 

Nakajima jumped and spun from his perusal of Akutsu's award. "I was going to see if Jin was free and wanted to spend a little time together." The slow licking of his lips told Sanada everything he needed to know about what kind of 'time' the two shared. Given the events of Golden Week, Sanada's room to disapprove was negligible. 

"He'll be back in about an hour or so. I'll tell him you came by."

"Oooor," Nakajima walked up and planted a hand on Sanada's chest, "you could eat the rest of these cakes. I'll just…eat you." His hand slid down and over Sanada's crotch like he thought Sanada was stupid and couldn't comprehend his brilliant come-on.

Sanada snorted and moved Nakajima's hand away. "No."

"I'm real good. Ask Akutsu." His hand was back in place, rubbing the fabric of Sanada's sweatpants in a way that, Sanada had to admit, backed up his claim to skill. "I won't tell anybody."

Sanada grabbed Nakajima's wrist with one hand and his chin with the other. "No," he said again, even if the growing heat in his cock was telling him that once wouldn't be so bad and, really, what was the harm? 

"Why not?" Nakajima tossed the cake box onto the bed and used his free hand to stroke Sanada's bicep. "I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

Three years would be a long time to go without. If Sanada thought about it, Nakajima might be the solution he needed to make sure his needs were met. Akutsu had clearly made use of him, so there was nothing the other boy could object to or blackmail him for. Overall, it was a reasonable situation. 

He stroked his thumb over Nakajima's bottom lip. "I have conditions." He managed to make his voice steady and intimidating despite the shivers up his spine from Nakajima's hand rubbing against his slowly growing erection.

"I'll do whatever you want." Nakajima sucked Sanada's thumb into his mouth.

Sanada pulsed his thumb in and out of Nakajima's mouth and released the wrist he was holding. "If you want this," he glanced his hand over the one now firmly holding him through the sweatpants, "then you won't be _spending time_ with anyone else." It would be more hygienically sound and less of a burden on his schedule if Nakajima were available solely to him. 

Nakajima moaned when Sanada removed his thumb. "I'm all yours," he said with an enthusiasm that had Sanada wondering if he hadn't just made a very large mistake. Again.

Shaking off his misgivings, Sanada reached back and plucked up a sponge cake. "These are good," he said and widened his stance. 

Nakajima sunk to his knees and curled his fingers into the waistband of Sanada's sweatpants. "I'll tell my mom to send some more. You can keep this box if you want." He tugged down both sweatpants and underwear. "They were right about you," he whispered, rubbing his face in Sanada's crotch and inhaling. "You're amazing."

Sanada didn't particularly want to know who was gossiping about his penis, but for the sake of staving off any future rumors, he asked, "Who are _they_?"

"Akutsu and some of the guys on the kendo team." Nakajima took hold of Sanada with both hands and slowly began to twist and slide, urging Sanada to full hardness. "This is going to be great."

"Get to it, then." A look at the clock showed they had half an hour until students started returning from their club activities. Sanada didn't want anyone seeing Nakajima leave the room. He wasn't ashamed of what they were doing, but the rest of the campus didn't need to know about it, especially Akutsu. Sanada had a feeling his roommate would react badly if he knew Sanada stole his fuck toy.

"I like that look on your face. Your smile's really good." Nakajima grinned before attempting to swallow Sanada down. He came away gagging, saliva dripping from the side of his mouth.

It was only when the door opened and slammed shut that Sanada realized he'd left it unlocked. 

*****

Akutsu hadn't had a smoke since the puff he'd taken off Michihiro back at the café. He hadn't even bothered with the sissy gum, deciding if he was gonna quit, he might as well just fucking do it and get on with his life. He was antsy the first few days, but his spirits were lifted by his performance on the midterm exams and at the karate tournament. He even bought a frame for his certificate and put it up to remind himself that, phenomenal fuckup that he was, he could still accomplish things if he wanted to. 

Once the high of accomplishment wore off, though, a deep agitation bled through him. He left Saturday practice early when it became clear that he wasn't going to be able to focus on anything. He didn't want to accidentally hurt one of his teammates, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let them get a hit in during sparring. Leaving was the only solution. So, when he opened the door to his room and found that shit Nakajima sucking Sanada off, all the agitation bubbled up and out through his fist, knocking Nakajima away from Sanada and into Sanada's bedside stand.

"I thought I told you to fucking stay away," he growled as he picked Nakajima up by the collar of his shirt. He had, too. Several times Nakajima asked about Sanada, wondering if he'd be inclined to accept Nakajima's special brand of service. Akutsu said, each and every time, that any asshole who messed with his roommate would get knocked down so hard he wouldn't be able to get back up. Akutsu Jin did not make threats he didn't intend to back up.

"It's none of your business what he does." Nakajima crawled over to Sanada's feet. Sanada reached back behind him and picked up some kind of cake thing. 

"My room, my roommate, my business." Akutsu kicked Nakajima in the stomach and he rolled back with a cry. Jin stepped back, waiting.

Sanada shoved the cake into his mouth then reached back for another. He held it out to Akutsu. "His mom sent them. They're good."

"Help me!" Nakajima shouted, slowly crawling back to Sanada. "You said I was yours!"

Akutsu watched Sanada swallow down the last of the cake in his mouth then look down to the boy at his feet. "No, I didn't." 

Nakajima ran his hand up Sanada's calf and pressed his face against Sanada's shin. "You told me you didn't want me seeing anyone else. That means I'm yours, doesn't it?"

Jin couldn't help but laugh. "When are you gonna learn to keep your fucking mouth shut?" he asked his roommate. "You keep finding these losers who think you love them, even if they only just fucking met you. I'm not gonna keep picking up your damn messes." He grabbed Nakajima by the hair and yanked him up to his feet. "You don't know a fucking thing about him," he told Nakajima. "You think he wants you hanging around him, whining like some girl for him to take care of you?" His fist impacting with Nakajima's nose seemed to release a weeks' worth of tension in his gut. "You were here and he wanted to get off. He just didn't want you dirtying up your pretty mouth with some other guy's cock between uses." He kicked Nakajima in the shins and the knotted muscle under his shoulder blade relaxed for the first time in a month. "Why do you think I told you to stay away, huh? I didn't want anyone bringing this annoying shit into my nice, quiet room." Another kick. Nakajima rolled into a ball, clutching at his stomach. Akutsu stepped back once he spied that one of Nakajima's kneecaps was out of joint.

With the intruder out of the way, Jin turned his rage on his roommate, who was still hard and still holding the cake he'd offered to Akutsu. 

*****

Sanada's brain was refusing to process anything beyond the cake he was eating. If he thought about Akutsu or the beaten body twitching on his floor, he'd be horrified or, worse, he wouldn't be horrified when he really, really ought to be. 

"I don't wanna eat your fucking cake." Akutsu grabbed the cake and shoved it in Sanada's mouth while simultaneously pushing Sanada backwards onto the bed. The tiny grooves in the cake box shoved into Sanada's lower back and he had to twist to remove the box. When the box was gone, he swallowed the cake down and looked up to meet Akutsu's stare. 

"What are you doing?" The way Akutsu's hand was lightly touching his hip, he was fairly certain he knew, but there was a chance Akutsu meant to distract him from an incoming punch.

"I'm gonna say this real slow so your stupid ass can understand it," Akutsu whispered against Sanada's ear. The hand on Sanada's hip moved to cradle his balls. "If you let any more assholes touch you, I'm ripping these off," his hand tightened painfully, "and shoving them down your throat. I've saved your ass twice now, so it's mine, and nobody touches my stuff, got it?" 

Sanada nodded, not because he agreed, but because it was the only thing that would get Akutsu's hand to loosen its grip. Once the hand was away, Sanada pulled back and delivered a punch that knocked Akutsu off of him. 

"You gonna fight me like that?" Akutsu pointed to Sanada's swaying, dripping erection. "Looks to me like you're not all that angry."

Sanada followed the slow movement of Akutsu's tongue over chapped lips. When Akutsu approached again, he didn't fight, just widened his stance and waited.

*****

Akutsu was aware, as he shucked off the sweaty t-shirt he'd worn to practice, that he was about to do something he'd long considered to be a job reserved for wimpy little shits who could only get off by crawling up to stronger guys and begging for it. Guys like Nakajima didn't have the guts it took to command the service of others, so they spent their lives on their knees, slurping at cocks until they found someone to take care of them.

On the floor, Nakajima whimpered. Jin turned and gave him another kick. "Did I tell you to make noise?" he asked. Nakajima tightened up further and shook his head. "Good. Just shut up and watch." Jin ran a hand along Sanada's side. "Better remember this, cuz if I catch you looking at him again, it'll be the last thing you look at. Got it?"

Nakajima nodded.

Akutsu's attention was redirected when Sanada pushed Jin's track pants down and ran his knuckles along the exposed hip. "Stop wasting my time," Sanada said. "I've got homework to do."

Jin leaned forward and, using Sanada as a brace, kicked off his track pants. Clear of the obstacle, he moved his mouth around and nipped at Sanada's ear. "I'm gonna make you scream, and you better not hold it in." He licked the shell of Sanada's ear, thrilling at the moan that rumbled Sanada's chest. He reached down and stroked the damp length resting next to his own. "I don't give a shit if the entire campus hears you. If anybody gives you shit, I'll rip 'em apart, got it?"

Sanada's hand squeezed his dick and Jin almost lost his legs. "Got it," Sanada growled then bit down into Akutsu's shoulder. "And I told you that I have homework, so get on your knees or get away from me."

Jin wanted to laugh, but the fingers sliding around him pulled away and the laugh morphed into a whine of regret halfway out of his mouth. If anyone heard him make that noise he'd be…

On the floor, Nakajima was twitching, some of it from pain, but most of it was likely from his hard-on. Next to Akutsu, Sanada stepped away and took three strides toward the injured boy. He grabbed him up, hauled him to the door, then threw him into the hallway. By the time he turned from locking the door, Akutsu was already on him.

*****

Akutsu wasn't as skilled as some of the guys Sanada'd had, but he fearlessly and relentlessly swallowed down until he could do so in smooth strokes, refusing to be intimidated by size or girth, uncaring if his teeth occasionally scraped or nicked Sanada's sensitive flesh. Head resting back against the door, Sanada began to pump his hips, driving himself deeper into the back of Akutsu's throat, content in the knowledge that he could do as he wished and not have to worry about meeting anyone's unrealistic expectations.

Sanada groaned in disappointment when Akutsu pulled away. 

"You're gonna start fucking my lungs if you go any deeper," Jin gasped. Spit ringed his mouth and dribbled from his chin. Sanada ran his hand over Jin's face to collect it then tackled the other boy to the ground and ran his slicked hand around Jin's shaft. 

"Maybe then you'd shut up." Sanada gripped as tightly as he could and watched Jin wince then shudder as he loosened his grip and moved his hand away.

"You're the one who keeps talkin' back. Fuck. Do that again." Jin's hips arced up, searching.

Sanada obliged, this time adding a twist of his wrist and an upward pull. He repeated and watched as Akutsu, breath coming in gasps, undulated on the floor in motions counter to Sanada's hand. He'd never paid much attention while pleasuring his partners, preferring to get them off then get them out of his way, but watching Akutsu was fascinating. The other boy's mouth hung open, relaxed out of its usual sneer, and muscles hardened from tennis and karate training bunched and relaxed under skin so pale it was hard to believe Akutsu ventured out into the sun every day for hours on end.

Akutsu's body was so distracting, Sanada didn't have time to stop the other boy from grabbing him in a hold and flipping him to his back.

*****

Laughter wasn't the reaction Akutsu expected when he slammed Sanada onto the floor hard enough to shake the furniture, but the sound…wasn't bad. It wasn't the Better Than You Rikkai Bastard laugh that Jin was accustomed to hearing, but a deeper sound that rippled the muscles of Sanada's abs and shook his shoulders. Sanada's hand, still connected to Jin's cock, squeezed in time with the chuckles and Jin had to slide out of his grip or risk blowing before Sanada, which he was determined would happen only if Sanada had a heart attack and died before he could come.

"What's so funny?" Jin asked. He reached down and glided his fingers over the swollen sac between Sanada's toned, delicious legs. They had a few small bruises from Akutsu's hands earlier, and Jin was filled with the desire to show those bruises to every asshole who'd ever though they could touch his roommate so everyone would know that Akutsu Jin had decided to lay his claim and only those with a death wish would go near the muscular thighs that were a blinding white compared to the soft gold of the rest of Sanada's skin.

Finally, Sanada's laughter halted. After a few lingering gasps and a moan when Jin trailed his finger to collect the fluid seeping from Sanada's tip, Genichirou raised up on his elbows and caught Jin's eye. "I don't think I've ever enjoyed it this much."

Jin's gut twisted and he had the ridiculous urge to crawl up Sanada's body and suck his tongue down. "Fuck it," he grumbled. He leaned down and over Sanada, sliding up his body until his mouth was hovering over Sanada's and their cocks slid parallel to one another. He ground down with his hips and, when Sanada's mouth opened, ate the groan down like a snake, swallowing the sound whole.

*****

Sanada soon discovered that there was a place in him beyond words and thought. It was a place where his skin sizzled and the air in his lungs burned like fire. His vision, dotted with specks of light, wavered in and out of clarity in time with the body that pressed him down into the hardwood flooring. In the few moments his mouth was free, he knew sounds were coming out, great guttural things without any resemblance to human speech.

He tried a few times, the motionless moments when Akutsu was adjusting their positions, to bring back the loose threads of his sensibilities, but they avoided him, floated farther and farther away until he gave up trying and relinquished everything to the technicolor brilliance washing over him.

"Fucking come already," Akutsu ordered. The words barely made sense, could barely be heard through the roaring of Sanada's heart in his ears and the squeaking of their sweat-slick bodies against one another.

Akutsu bit into Sanada's shoulder, his body starting to shake, and the pressure that had slowly been building since Akutsu first took Sanada's dick into his mouth broke the fragile canister of Genichirou's control. The growled cry he'd always managed to contain before spilled from him and was quickly swallowed down by Akutsu's bruised and chapped lips.

Slowly, the world began to right itself.

*****

"How would you rate your stress today, Jin?" The raisin smiled up at him over her clipboard. She'd gotten a new one a bit ago, right after that whole ordeal when Nakajima, the fucking crybaby, told the dorm supervisor that Akutsu beat him up. If Sanada hadn't stepped forward and said Nakajima had been trying to blackmail him and Akutsu was protecting him—a lie that the Sanada-loving idiots ate up without question—Akutsu might have been sent back home to be castrated and buried by his mother. As it was, Akutsu was a hero, the staff still thought the sun shined out of Sanada's ass, and Nakajima was expelled for moral misconduct. The entire incident also served to send a nice message to anyone who thought they had a chance with Sanada: Trespassers will be beaten to shit. 

"Two." Things were going good, but the term exam was closing in and he, Akutsu Jin, was trying his hardest to be the top in his class. Sanada refused to lend Jin his notes, saying their bet would be meaningless if Akutsu couldn't do it on his own.

"That's excellent!"

Yeah, it would be excellent when results were announced and Akutsu could finally feel Sanada's mouth wrapped around him, all hot and wet. "I'm doin' my best," he said when the silence of his thoughts took a bit too long. 

"You've done very well, Jin. It's difficult to quit smoking, and you've not only done that, you've managed to improve your studies as well. You should be very proud of yourself."

The smoking was no longer an issue. Sanada said he wouldn't have anything to do with someone who smelled like an ashtray and Jin, idiot that he was, figured reliable, quality orgasms were a lot better than the quick fix smoking gave him anyway. Still, there were moments, whenever Sanada was out of sight, that Jin started to get twitchy, wondering if this thing they'd started was gonna come back and bite him in the ass. Those times, he longed for the quiet reassurance of a lungful of smoke and, once, he walked out to the school's smoking spot just to breathe it in a little. When he got to the room that afternoon, Sanada's nose turned up and he sniffed the air, pronounced Akutsu to be disgusting, and fell into the pissy passive-aggressive silence Jin associated with their first week as roommates. 

"Hey, tell me something," Jin said, eyes on the ceiling. "And don't write this down. It's just you an' me."

The raisin set her clipboard down onto the floor and folded her hands in her lap. "What would you like to discuss?"

"So I've got this roommate, yeah?" He shouldn't be talking about this, but it was bugging him, and getting in the way of his studies and his sanity.

"Sanada Genichirou, yes."

"You've talked to him a couple times, right?"

"We had a few sessions." The raisin was calm in her chair and smiling softly, like she knew what Jin was going to say but was going to let him say it anyway.

Jin swallowed down his nerves. "He talk about me?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to discuss other patients. You wouldn't want me to tell him what we talk about in here, would you?"

Akutsu winced at the thought of Sanada knowing what an utter nutjob he was. "I guess not, it's just…" He stopped and took a deep breath. Once. Twice. "We screw around sometimes."

There should have been shock on her face. She was way too calm to not know. "I suspected you two were close," she said to him. 

Close. Was that the clinical term for fuck buddies? "It's making me fucking crazy," Jin said once he had calmed from the heat even the idea of Sanada's body brought forth.

"How so?" She still had that calm, controlled smile. 

"You can't repeat any of this shit."

"Of course not. We operate in strict confidentiality here, Jin. Always."

His heart was beating in his chest and his legs were sweating, sticking to the fake leather couch. "I've become a fucking wuss," he said, finally. "I stopped smoking just so he won't get all pissy and hold out on me. I started studying just so he'll do something I could get anyone to do, but I don't _want_ those other guys, I just want _him_ to do it." He slammed his fist into the couch cushion.

"Why?" the raisin prompted.

Akutsu didn't want to talk about what Sanada did to his cock with an old married woman or tell her about the sounds Sanada made when he came and the way Sanada's balls smelled after he'd been working out. He didn't want to say that he left marks on Sanada's body with obsessive regularity to show anyone fortunate enough to see Genichirou naked that he was Jin's property and not to be touched. He especially didn't want to discuss how Sanada neither did nor felt any of these things and, while this thing was becoming more a need and less of a want for Jin, Sanada seemed like he could take it or leave it at any time, and that thought was making Jin into the kind of guy he used to spit on before kicking in the crotch.

"It's okay, Jin. Take your time."

Jin brushed away all the thoughts swirling in his head until he was down to the deepest, most tightly coiled desire in the pit he called his brain. "I wanna fuck him so bad that I'd chop my own dick off if he promised it'd get in him some day." Once the words started, they continued to tumble out toward the ceiling while a sweat broke on Jin's forehead. "I wanna lock him in the room so I know he's not going to anyone else, and I wanna rip apart anyone who touches him for any reason. I wanna die with his hand on my cock and his mouth moaning out my name while he shoots on himself." He should be hard just from thinking about it, but the impossibility of it kept him soft and sunken into the couch. He turned to look at the counselor.

"You've given this some thought," the raisin said, the blush on her cheeks giving her face the most color Akutsu'd ever seen her have, and that counted the week she was wearing too much of that cheap looking makeup.

"It's all I _can_ think about," Jin grumbled. "I told you; I'm a fucking wuss now."

The raisin picked up her clipboard. "I am going to suggest a joint session with your roommate. I feel there is a communication gap between you. Perhaps some moderated discussion would assist you in furthering your emotional goals."

Jin returned his gaze to the ceiling. "What the fuck does that mean?"

There was a creak and, when Jin looked to the side, the raisin was standing next to him. "It means," she said, resting her hand on Jin's head, "that you need to start talking with your pants on, and I'd like to help you learn how."

"Fine. Whatever."

She patted his head and returned to her chair. "Good. I'll expect you both on Monday after classes. Our time's up for today."

Akutsu rolled off the couch and stumbled toward the door. "Thanks," he said over his shoulder.

******

Sometimes Akutsu came back from his counseling sessions full of energy and pounced on Sanada, demanding attention. Other times, Jin walked in, set his things down, and flopped onto his bed without a word. When Sanada heard the bed creak, he knew it was going to be a rough night.

"Tough session?" he asked, standing from his desk and sitting at the end of Akutsu's bed. While waiting for a reply, he started removing Akutsu's socks. The fool would stay in them all night and get foot fungus if left to his own devices.

"She wants you to come with me on Monday." Jin wiggled the free toes on his left foot while Sanada removed the sock on his right. "She says we're shit at communicating."

He certainly couldn't disagree with that, though he had to wonder what Akutsu'd said to give her that impression. Sanada'd been very careful to give appropriately bland and uninformative responses to her questions when the school forced him to speak with her after the disaster Nakajima created. "Is this optional?" 

Jin flexed his feet and rolled his ankles. "Probably," he sighed. "That feels good."

Sanada continued to massage his thumbs into the arch of Akutsu's foot. "How long will it take? I don't want to miss club activities." There was a tournament coming up and Sanada needed to win. His grandfather sent him a very long email upon receipt of Genichirou's second place certificate, saying Genichirou could expect some personal training during the summer break if he couldn't step up his performance.

"Thinking about your asshole grandfather again?" Akutsu lifted his legs and wrapped them around Sanada's waist. The force of the pull wasn't enough to actually topple Sanada, but Genichirou got the hint and scooted back, falling down to rest between Jin's legs with his head on Jin's stomach. "I told you I'm gonna kick his ass if he hurts you. I don't care how fucking old he is." Akutsu's fingers slid through Genichirou's hair.

"I never should've told you about that. It only happened once." Sanada's grandfather once smacked him for mouthing off during training. It hadn't been hard enough to cause severe injury, but it left a bruise that Genichirou'd had to explain to his middle school teammates. He mentioned the incident to Akutsu while they were swapping stories of their middle school tennis days and Sanada's hand down Akutsu's pants was the only thing that kept the other boy from boarding a train and taking out the old man.

"Don't put up with that shit," Akutsu snarled. His fingers massaged Sanada's scalp. 

"If something comes up, I'll deal with it." Sanada scraped his nails lightly over the fabric covering Jin's kneecaps. "Don't worry."

"I'm not worried. I'm just letting you know." Jin's hands moved from Sanada's scalp to his shoulders. "Why're your shoulders always so tense?"

The course of Sanada's hands grew longer, looping from the top of Akutsu's knees around to the bottom of his calves and back. "Maybe it's because you're unreasonable and think I can't take care of myself." Shit. He wasn't supposed to say that.

The hands on Sanada's shoulders squeezed. "So, you coming on Monday?"

"Yeah, I'm coming." Sanada started to scoot toward the end of the bed but Jin pulled him back. It was always shocking how strong those arms were.

"Where you goin'? I thought you were trying to cheer me up." Akutsu nuzzled the back of Sanada's neck.

The small, high pitched noise that snuck out of his nose was completely involuntary. "Is that what I was doing?"

"You were doin' a really shitty job of it, but yeah." Jin's teeth raked across the base of Genichirou's neck. 

"I'm sure dinner will help. Let's go." Smiling as he turned away from Akutsu, Sanada jumped off the bed. "There's cheesecake for dessert today." It was nice not to have to hide his joy at the thought of the sweet dessert. 

Akutsu groaned and flopped back onto the bed. "Fucking communication issues is right."

*****

Jin waited for Sanada to sit down before flopping on the couch and resting his feet up on his roommate's lap. Sanada patted his feet briefly but didn't look at him. Akutsu flexed his socked feet and dug his toes into the hard muscle of Sanada's thigh.

"Boys, how are you doing today?" The raisin looked at them both then wrote something down.

"One to ten like usual?" Akutsu asked, figuring he'd better go first and give Sanada time to think.

"Of course."

"Five." He relaxed a little deeper down until his ankles were cradled on Sanada's farthest leg. "I got a lot of stuff wrong on the practice test. The guy who sits next to me said some stuff and I wanted to sock him."

"Did you?"

"Nah." He stopped and caught Sanada looking at him in disbelief. "I got more important stuff to punch people for than them running their mouths about a practice test." He looked back at the raisin and found her smiling at him.

"You're really doing well managing your anger, Jin. That's fantastic." She wrote something down then turned to Sanada. "How about you, Sanada?"

Jin felt Sanada tense. "Just chill," he whispered. "She's not gonna run her mouth." The body under his feet relaxed a bit and Jin's stomach fluttered with the knowledge that he'd done something right.

"Eight," Sanada said.

"That's a very high number," the raisin said when Sanada offered no explanation. 

Sanada looked toward a bookshelf on the side of the room. "It's normal for me."

"This is gonna take all day," Akutsu groaned, throwing his head back onto the arm of the couch. "Just fucking tell us why your day sucked. And what the fuck do you mean by normal?"

"Jin," the raisin said, "you need to give Sanada time to answer at his own pace. Not everyone is comfortable speaking their mind."

Sanada looked away from the bookshelf and back to the raisin. He shoved Jin's feet off of him. "During PE someone saw where you bit my hip yesterday and started asking me how much you charged for your bodyguard services and if it was one of the fringe benefits. I punched him. I missed three questions on the practice math exam because of an equation transcription error. Lunch contained eggplant, which I hate. Before history half the class was aware that I punched someone and wanted to know why. Two people became belligerent when I didn't answer and I had to punch them, too. My fist hurts and I might have pulled a muscle in my shoulder."

"That's quite a day," the raisin said when Sanada paused.

"I'm not finished." Sanada sat forward on the couch and turned to face Jin. "I want a new roommate."

Jin's heart stopped and his viscera constricted into a leaden ball. The only thing he could think to say was a stuttered, "What the fuck?"

"You keep running your mouth about how I belong to you. I'm not some toy to be pulled out when you need to get off or pass an exam. I'm busy. I don't have time to stop everything so you can cover your nicotine cravings with my come. I don't need you protecting me with your ridiculous and disgusting bites. I can take care of myself." Sanada inhaled deeply and turned to the raisin. " _That_ is why my day is an eight."

"Hold the fuck up." Jin launched himself onto Sanada's side of the couch and grabbed Sanada by the front of his shirt. "You think I don't know you can take care of yourself? You forget how you almost beat the crap out of me that first week?" Akutsu's dick certainly hadn't forgotten and chose that moment to remind him that there were better things to do with Sanada than argue with him. For once, he ignored it. "If _I_ can't fucking beat you, how could those assholes do it? Unless you fucking let them again."

"Boys. Enough." The raisin's voice cut through the scant space between the them. "Jin, back to your side of the couch, please." She waited until Jin was settled before she spoke again. "What I hear you saying, Sanada, is that you feel Akutsu only values you as an object. Is that correct?"

Sanada shrugged.

"Jin, I'd like you take a moment to think. When you feel ready, please tell Sanada how you feel about your relationship in one sentence. Genichirou…may I call you Genichirou?"

Sanada nodded.

"Thank you. Genichirou, I'd like you to do the same. Now, please close your eyes and don't open them until I've indicated it's okay to do so. The only thing you should say is your sentence. Take all the time you need. This is not a race."

Akutsu closed his eyes and immediately felt like an idiot. Why had he ever thought the raisin might be able to help him get his shit with Sanada together? This wasn't about emotions; this was about…something else. It was about how good it felt when Sanada made him come and how good it felt when he heard that sexy growl before Sanada came and how fucking fantastic it was that he could get all of this from one of the toughest fuckers in school. It was about how nice it was to just lean against Sanada and listen to music because he knew the other boy wouldn't give a shit what he was listening to or how much he liked having warm, calloused hands trace gently up and down his chest for no reason. It was about being able to focus on something other than how shitty other people were.

But it was also about the frantic beating of Akutsu's heart whenever somebody looked at Genichirou a little too long. It was about the gut deep desire to tie the other boy down so he could never leave and never be stolen. It was about wanting to rip out of Sanada everything he'd held back from others so Jin could say that Sanada Genichirou, every last thought and breath and heartbeat, belonged to him, Akutsu Jin, and no one else would ever be able to have him.

Slowly, through lips dry with worry, Jin spoke. 

*****

'He gives good head' was likely not going to be the sort or response Dr. Hirashige was looking for, though it was the first thing that came to mind when Sanada thought of his relationship (if it could be called such a thing) with Akutsu. Sanada spent a good amount of time sublimating his feelings in the name of tennis, kendo, and general survival, so he wasn't shocked that Akutsu spoke first. 

"He's the first thing I've wanted that I'm not willing to give up."

If not for Dr. Hirashige's quiet cough when he opened his mouth to say Akutsu was full of shit, he might have broken the code of silence for the exercise. Instead, he pushed Akutsu's words to the back of his mind and continued to think on his own sentence. 

What did he think of Akutsu Jin? He thought that Jin came too quickly and couldn't get it up again soon enough. He thought that Jin was loud, embarrassing, and ran away from challenges by punching them in the face instead of thinking them through. He thought that Jin could blow him every day and he'd never get bored with it. He thought that his parents would destroy him if they knew how much he enjoyed reading his textbooks with Jin sprawled over him, listening to music, lazily grinding their hips together to convince Genichirou to 'put the fucking book down.' 

He thought Akutsu could break through the last of his control. He thought Akutsu could destroy every carefully placed tile in the shogi board that was his life, upending it all in one swoop. He thought it might be nice to just let Jin do it so he could really do what he wanted, be what he wanted. He thought it was pathetic that he couldn't do it himself, even after all the work he'd done to run away from what he thought was the source of it all.

"He reminds me that I'm a coward," he spoke into the silence, hating how the words echoed in his head long after they'd thinned in the air.

*****

When the raisin told them they could open their eyes, Jin kept his closed. He'd been stupid and said something dumb. And what the hell was he going to say now that he'd heard Sanada say that he made him feel like shit. Get over it? Are you fucking nuts? Jin knew what it felt like to mask over cowardice. He spent a lot of time flinging his fists at everything and anything so he wouldn't have to face the shitty circumstances he was living in. He got over it, though, and he supposed Sanada would, too. 

"Boys. Open your eyes." There was a no-nonsense tone to the raisin's voice that dragged open Jin's leaden eyelids. As his eyes focused he noticed Sanada had just started to open his as well. "Let's talk about what we've learned today. I'd like to offer some observations and suggestions if you both don't mind."

Sanada shook his head. Jin raised his hand and gestured for her to continue.

"We'll begin with you, Jin."

*****

After the session they walked quietly back to the room. It was too late to go to club activities—the session took two hours—and Sanada wasn't feeling up to seeing other people anyway. The urge to skip dinner and survive on the snacks he had stored in his desk drawer was strong.

Akutsu unlocked the door and immediately collapsed on his bed. Sanada locked up and mechanically changed out of his uniform and into the sweatpants he used to lounge around the room. He grabbed a bottle of lukewarm water from his desk and drank it down. It did nothing but emphasize the empty pit in his stomach.

"This is fucking stupid," Akutsu said, raising up on his elbow and looking at Sanada. "I don't give a fuck if I'm an obsessive bastard who is trying to find a socially whatever the fuck addiction."

"Socially acceptable and sustainable," Sanada offered. He quite agreed with Dr. Hirashige's analysis on that one, though he didn't particularly feel her analysis of him held any merit at all.

"And I don't care if your self-esteem's so shit that you sabotage anything that tries to help you." Akutsu got up, unbuttoning his shirt as he rose. "If you're gonna do stupid shit, I'll just stop you. If your dick gets sore because I'm sucking it too much, fucking punch me in the face and tell me to calm the fuck down. Problem fucking solved." Jin stepped out of his pants and boxers. "Now get the hell over here and suck my damn cock, then we're going to eat dinner. They've got chiffon cake for dessert and you'll be a bitch tomorrow if you miss it."

Sanada couldn't hold back the laugh but wasn't sure if it was amusement or hysteria. Akutsu was standing before him, nude and completely soft, suggesting they simply pummel their way through their problems like Neanderthals. The simplicity of it was charming…and horribly tempting.

"Dinner's in twenty minutes."

"Then you better get sucking." Akutsu cupped himself and waddled forward. "Or you afraid you're not good enough to get the job done?"

Sanada moved forward the final step to bring himself flush with Akutsu. "I told you that you have to be first in the term exam." His slipped his hand down and batted Akutsu's away from the slowly thickening length. "You'll take what I give you until then." He pulled slowly and lightly, encouraging Jin to full hardness. "I might reconsider if you find a suitable bribe."

Akutsu groaned and started pumping his hips. "Shit," he hissed as Sanada's finger traced over his slit, picking up the pearl of moisture there and rubbing it around the head. "What've I gotta do?"

A drop of sweat collected at the side of Jin's face and rolled down into the curve of his neck. Sanada licked it up. "What do you think?" He sucked at the juncture of Jin's neck and shoulder, making sure to leave a mark dark enough to show through the thin white cotton of their uniform shirts. Let Jin enjoy the pain of kicking away nosy classmates. He deserved it for the drama he'd turned Sanada's quiet life into.

Jin made the noise in his nose that signaled he was close. Sanada tightened his grip and began to twist, just the way Jin liked. With a spasm and a hiss, Jin came, holding on to Sanada's shoulders for support as the last tremors shook him. "How many fucking pieces of cake you want?"

Sanada smacked a come covered hand against Akutsu's ass and grinned when his dick bobbed with the impact as though trying to rally itself for another go, futile as the endeavor might be. "Ten pieces."

"That's fucking impossible."

"Good luck studying." One more smack and Genichirou went to his desk for a tissue.

"Five pieces." Akutsu crossed his arms over his chest. "Five pieces and you don't have to swallow."

Sanada tossed him the tissue box. "Ten, and I wasn't planning to swallow anyway."

Akutsu grabbed the box out of the air and cleaned himself off. "Shit. Fuck. Fine." He threw the used tissues away and started to dress again. "Put a fucking shirt on so we can go."

Sanada threw on a shirt and changed into pants that weren't splattered with Akutsu's come. "Ten pieces," he reminded his roommate as they left.

"Yeah, I heard you." Akutsu swatted Sanada's ass and grinned. "What do I get for twenty?"

Sanada finished locking the room and pocketed the key. He looked around the hall to make sure nobody was watching before running his hand over Akutsu's warm crotch. "Suspended," he said, finally. Akutsu's groan of frustration wiped away the last of his weariness and, together, they walked to the dining hall intent on enjoying a good meal and some light thievery. Afterwards, Sanada would gorge himself on chiffon cake and grumble about his stomach until Jin, concerned, would tell him to go to bed, neatly getting him off the hook until Jin was horny again…a good five or six hours later if Sanada was lucky.

Seated at the table, waiting for the meal to begin, Sanada couldn't help but think it really would be a wonderful year.


End file.
